Lucie Vítková. Photo courtesy the artist.
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For OPEN STUDIOS, 2024 Artist-in-Residence Leo Chang curates Noise x Movement, bringing together artists who embrace the performative within their noise/sound-making practice, including Qiujiang Levi Lu, Lucie Vitková in a duet with Chang, and Kwami Winfield. Movements can observably influence sound; simultaneously, within this relationship, there is an emotional resonance between the body and vibration. In Noise x Movement, artists experiment with different forms of dependence and relationships with objects and instruments, and perform expressions of bodily and sonic liberation and resistance.
Qiujiang Levi Lu: Metanoia, for One Augmented Body
Metanoia, for One Augmented Body is a solo performance that explores the artist’s journey with body dysmorphia. In this work, Qiujiang Levi Lu is amplifying their internal body; muscle stretches, joint cracks, bone-conducted vibrations, and body movement become audible and palpable in the performance space. A microphone is inserted into Lu’s body thru their anus, and sounds are amplified by subwoofers in the room with processing. They also place a custom-built speaker in their mouth to create feedback with the headset microphone, so that they are able to use their voice to control the feedback.
Lucie Vítková with Leo Chang: Earth Eater x VOCALNORI
Leo Chang performs with his VOCALNORI instrument, where gongs are amplified through electronic instruments and voice. Lucie Vítková brings Earth Eater, a performative being who communicates through sound and light in space. The duo comes together to interact from within these two established bodies.
Kwami Winfield: Dissances
A new work for brass and electronics applying feedback in various scales of space within distinct cavities: trumpets, studios, amplifiers, sinuses.
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OPEN STUDIOS is a series of work-in-progress showings held regularly throughout the year, organized by guest curators, and serves as an incubator for new work, inviting the public into the artistic process.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Leo Chang (curator) is a Korean improviser, composer, and performer of experimental music. Born in Seoul, Leo lived as an expat in Singapore, Taipei, and Shanghai, until moving to the United States in 2011. His art is an act of homemaking inspired by various musical and ideological movements that have sought to question power dynamics and imagine egalitarian possibilities. His primary methods are free improvisation, written text, graphical notation, and electronic processing. Leo's projects have been presented and supported by the Vision Festival, Roulette Intermedium, Korea Foundation, Ostrava Days New Music Festival, New York City Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, Brooklyn Arts Council, and EMPAC at Rensselaer, among others. His various performances and collaborations have been with William Parker, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Che Chen, gamin, DoYeon Kim, eddy kwon, Miriam Parker, Lucie Vítková, Chris Williams, Lester St. Louis, Jason Nazary, S.E.M. ensemble, the Rhythm Method, and the JACK quartet. Leo holds a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. www.listentoleo.com
Qiujiang Levi Lu/卢秋江 (they/them) is a Beijing-born, New Jersey-based experimental improviser, composer, and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. As an improvising performer, Lu utilizes custom-built feedback-driven electronic instruments, voice, and amplified muscle movements to deliver visceral, raw, and intimate performance. In addition to performing, Lu also writes for acoustic and electronic musicians and improvisers. Lu’s works have been performed at major festivals, conferences, and venues such as DiMenna Center, HighZero Festival, Spencer Museum of Art, Jazz Showcase, IRCAM Forum, SEAMUS conference, NIME conference, Elastic Arts, Oberlin MMG, Rhizome DC, and NowNet Arts conference.
Lucie Vítková is a composer, improviser, and performer (accordion, hichiriki, drums, synthesizer, harmonica, voice, and dance) from the Czech Republic, living in New York. Their compositions focus on sonification (compositions based on abstract models derived from physical objects), while in their improvisation practice, Lucie works with the characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. In Lucie’s recent work, they are interested in the social-political aspects of music in relation to everyday life and in reusing trash to build sonic costumes and instruments. www.vitkovalucie.com
Kwami Winfield is a multi-disciplinary sound artist, composer, and improviser born in Jersey City and based in Brooklyn. Winfield works with trumpet, electronics, percussion, trash, rocks, and other objects and collaborators, and is led by a fascination with the sticky, noisy, and often grotesque circuitry of everyday accumulation, consumption, and waste. Involved with a growing number bands including Turnip King, Next Bus Pls, Mimé, Many Many Girls, Camp Rock, Mom + Anon, Piss, Under the Hands of Eachother, and several unnamed collaborative projects with artists and people such as Nana XOXO, Lucy York, C. Spencer Yeh, Leo Chang, and Rémy Bélanger de Beaufort. Big love. Winfield has developed her interdisciplinary collaborations as a Pioneer Works Music Resident (2023), an Artist in Residence at Chaos Computer (2023), and in ongoing compositional contributions to the works of choreographers Arien Wilkerson and Kyle Marshall. Alongside Cal Fish, Winfield co-runs and has released music on Call Waitn, a DIY label and toll free hotline featuring underground sounds at 917-426-4260.